The scandals involving the living expenses of Senators Pamela Wallin and Mike Duffy have recently been trumped by the $90,000 cheque issued to Duffy by the Prime Minister's hard-working chief of staff, Nigel Wright. These stories have recently dominated newspaper front-pages across Canada. However, such attention-grabbers have the effect of burying lesser instances of similar entitlement and excess.

For example, on Thursday, May 16, QMI Agency's David Akin reported in The Examiner on the spending habits of another Harper appointee, Daniel Caron, the economist cum bureaucrat who became the head of Library and Archives Canada (LAC). The Thursday headline read "Top librarian resigns post." It revealed rather ugly news from a taxpayer's point of view but much deeper concern for those interested in devaluing of our national library and archives.

It turns out that Caron has had his bureaucratic hands deep in the public trough as well. He resigned because it had been publicly revealed that he had spent $4,000 of taxpayers' money in 2011-12 on personal Spanish lessons (hola!) and had contracted to spend another $10,000 to improve his linguistic skills next year. He claims such expenses were justified and duly authorized. Far worse, however, his expense account as head librarian was a capacious balloon. It involved extensive European travel, expensive hotels and numerous Rideau Club luncheons. NDP researchers estimate that Caron billed taxpayers $87,000 in expenses for each of the last two years, nearly double the amount of his boss, Heritage Minister James Moore, whose home is in British Columbia.

Little wonder, then, that James Moore had to fire Caron as quickly and as quietly as possible. In retrospect, it is surprising that Moore tolerated Caron's actions as Chief Librarian for as long as he did. He had already received a deluge of complaints from well-informed people across the country--librarians, historians, academics and outraged citizens.

Here is the man who, without much consultation or explanation, cut off several vital services of LAC during his time in office; then, to keep the internal criticism in check, he imposed a gag order on his librarians, archivists and other staff.

In earlier columns (Jan. 16 and 30) I wrote about the great damage that Caron was doing to LAC, an institution of extraordinary national significance and of daily importance to historians of all stripes, be they academics, genealogists or private citizens. His job was no less than to oversee the preservation of Canada's documentary heritage in a responsible and proactive way. But his approach was arrogant, slaphappy and counter-productive. In the name of budget austerity and faced with the need to cut several millions of dollars from his operating budget, he authorized, for example, the termination of vital programs like Interlibrary Loans, reduced access hours for researchers, and eliminated LAC's standard duty of acquiring newly available archival material and published books. He claimed to be committed to digitalizing the archival collection, but, year after year, he offered little evidence of progress in that regard and provided only marginal information about the processes involved. He did little to consult with the country's librarians and dismissed any queries or criticisms as merely petty and vexatious. And all that time he was improving his Spanish and allegedly traveling to undertake discussions with leading archivists in Europe while stonewalling their Canadian contemporaries.

The scenario as it has evolved seems cartoonish to a fault. The Spanish lessons read too much like Mike Duffy's principal residence (read forlorn little cottage) in Prince Edward Island.

Seven years ago I had naively expected Stephen Harper to run a government and bureaucracy that offered transparency and accountability. He promised as much and made it clear that he stood for responsible values and personal probity. But what has gone on in the name of the patronage that he so strenuously opposed and the number of (ill-judged) bureaucratic appointments he has made is nothing less than embarrassing to Canada. And I don't count Nigel Wright among that lot.

Given the recent "resignation" of Daniel Caron, my worry continues to be that LAC will remain in a troubled and crippled condition. Will his replacement be a knowledgeable and informed leader with appropriate library credentials and expertise or simply another power-wielding bureaucrat like Caron? Once the smoke of 2012-13 has cleared, my fear is that Canada's new head librarian will again be encouraged -- with cleaner hands (for the moment) -- to continue to disembowel one of our most important cultural and historical institutions.

Few archivists dispute the need for digitalization and preservation of archival collections -- it is the buzz of the twenty-first century. But institutions like LAC need not only ministerial protection and understanding but also an appropriate level of funding if they are to advance toward the future in a way that will address Canada's best interests and the preservation and development of its archival heritage.

I hope that there will be enlightened consultation in Ottawa and that we will see a much better appointment than Daniel Caron, someone who will be able to restore LAC to its former reputation and significance while providing the wise leadership the institution so dearly needs.

Michael Peterman is professor emeritus of English literature at Trent University.